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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Eves and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that on covers a little bit more about

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Speaker 1: history every day. Today is February tenth, nineteen. The day

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Speaker 1: was February. It was St. Scholastica's Day, commemorative day of

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Speaker 1: feasting that honors the Catholic Saints Scholastica. On this day

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Speaker 1: in Oxford, England, a couple of students from the University

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Speaker 1: of Oxford were drinking at the swindle Stock Tavern and

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Speaker 1: just did not like the wine they were guzzling. The students,

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Speaker 1: who were claimed to be one Walter Springhouse and a

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Speaker 1: Roger de chester Field, expressed their distaste by complaining to

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Speaker 1: the taverner, and the taverner named John Croydon responded and kind,

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Speaker 1: exchanging some snappy words with the students. In the end,

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Speaker 1: the students through the wine at the tavern keeper's head

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Speaker 1: and beat him up. This bar fight sparked three days

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Speaker 1: of riots which resulted in the death of sixty three

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Speaker 1: students and thirty locals. On the surface, it seems like

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Speaker 1: the riots were incited by a group of people who

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Speaker 1: made a mountain out of a mole hill, but tensions

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Speaker 1: between the townspeople and the university folk are still called

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Speaker 1: town and gown had been brewing for a while. The

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Speaker 1: university had a lot of power in the town, and

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Speaker 1: the townspeople weren't all happy with the university's growing control

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Speaker 1: and Oxford's worsening economic conditions. There were conflicts between the

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Speaker 1: town and the university over the control of prices and

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Speaker 1: any of town versus gown riots had broken out in

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Speaker 1: the thirteenth century. There was even violence between scholars within

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Speaker 1: the university. So after the students through the wine at

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Speaker 1: the tavern keeper, a brawl broke out in the bar.

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Speaker 1: Mayor of Oxford, John to Bearford, acts the chancellor of

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Speaker 1: the university to arrest the two offending wine throwers, but

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Speaker 1: that did not happen. A local rang the bill at

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Speaker 1: St Martin's Church to call out the town's folk, and

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Speaker 1: students rang the bill at the university church at St

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Speaker 1: Mary's to alert the academic folk, and from there the

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Speaker 1: pub brawl turned into an all out riot. Armed with bows,

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Speaker 1: arrows and other weapons, the two sides fought all day,

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Speaker 1: and by the end of that day nobody had been

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Speaker 1: killed or fatally wounded. But the next day the locals

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Speaker 1: put armed men at St. Giles Church attacked passing people

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Speaker 1: from the university. People joined the riots from the surrounding countryside,

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Speaker 1: and they looted and set fire to some of the

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Speaker 1: academic halls. And the day after that the townspeople apparently

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Speaker 1: reached havoc on the university folk. Students houses were looted,

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Speaker 1: one of the town's gates have been destroyed. They scalped

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Speaker 1: some scholars. The locals seemed to have emerged victorious, but

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Speaker 1: in the end the university had the upper hand. King

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Speaker 1: Edward the Third was staying at Woodstock, which is near Oxford,

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Speaker 1: and he sent judges to Oxford to investigate the riots

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Speaker 1: and find out who led them. A bunch of people

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Speaker 1: were imprisoned, including the mayor. The king told the townsfolk

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Speaker 1: to give everything they had looted back to the university

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Speaker 1: and to pay a hefty sum. He said that there

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Speaker 1: would also be a charter for the university that said

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Speaker 1: the chancellor would have jurisdiction over the selling of food

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Speaker 1: in Oxford, and he would get the profits of the

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Speaker 1: town's judicial process. The charter also said that every future

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Speaker 1: sheriff of Oxford would take an oath to defend the

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Speaker 1: privileges of the university and protect the students from violence.

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Speaker 1: The king also gave the university members immunity from prosecution

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Speaker 1: for robbery, trespassing, arson, and other crimes they had committed.

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Speaker 1: On top of all this, the Bishop of Lincoln put

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Speaker 1: Oxford under an interdict that lasted for about a year.

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Speaker 1: The interdict was lifted on the condition that the mayor, bailiffs,

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Speaker 1: and sixty other leading townspeople attend and pay for a

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Speaker 1: mass every year on the anniversary of the riots. During

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Speaker 1: the mass, they were required to pray for the souls

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Speaker 1: of those who have been killed, and each person was

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Speaker 1: supposed to for a penny at the altar. During the mass,

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Speaker 1: they were required to pray for the souls of those

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Speaker 1: who have been killed, and each person was supposed to

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Speaker 1: offer a penny at the altar. This practice continued all

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Speaker 1: the way up until the eighteen hundreds, although some mayors

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Speaker 1: over the years did refuse to participate in the penance.

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Speaker 1: But even though the town no longer had to continue

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Speaker 1: this tradition after eighteen Parliament didn't officially rescind the decree

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Speaker 1: until nineteen fifty five. A lot of the details of

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Speaker 1: the riots are shaky and likely biased or exaggerated, considering

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Speaker 1: accounts of the event were largely written by scholars from

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Speaker 1: the university, and details differed from one account to the next,

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Speaker 1: but the already small town was devastated by all the

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Speaker 1: deaths and destruction, and the Saints Scholastica Day Riots remain

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Speaker 1: an infamous event in the history of Oxford, England. I'm

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Speaker 1: Eves Jeff Coote and hopefully you know a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about history today than you did yesterday. You can

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Speaker 1: subscribe to This Day in History class on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Tune in tomorrow for another Day in History.